


Game Night Prep: Blake Belladonna Vs Tenebrous Remnant: Faunus

by Kiiratam



Series: Game Nights at Beacon Academy & Beyond [4]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), RWBY, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Anti-Faunus Racism (RWBY), Canon Compliant, Especially with regard to the sexualization of Faunus, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Metatext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 08:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20225029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: Blake provides a short review of the Tenebrous Remnant: Faunus supplement, suitable for use in all games of WereGrimm: The Facade, Witch: The Summoning, Foocubus: The Dreaming, or Liche: The Returning.Takes place between Volumes 1 and 2. (My BMBLB fic index)





	Game Night Prep: Blake Belladonna Vs Tenebrous Remnant: Faunus

Blake swore, and the book went pinwheeling across the room. Hit the door with a loud thunk.

  
Yang looked up from _Sais of Passion_. "Wasn't that a library book?"

  
"**Do. Not. Care.**"

  
Carefully marking her place - it was just getting good and smutty- Yang leaned over the side of her bunk bed, looking down at Blake.

  
She'd just pulled the ribbon off her ears, and threw that too. It didn't go nearly as far, gently drifting to the floor of their room at Beacon Academy. Freed, her ears flattened, twitching every so often.

  
Half expecting to get her head bitten off, Yang asked lightly, "Not a fan of _WereGrimm: The Facade_?"

  
"I'm sure the rules were _fine_. It's the rest of the book that's a problem!"

  
"What did it say? Was the dedication 'Blake Belladonna is a big jerk?'"

  
"Worse. The library didn't have the corebook available, so I borrowed a supplement. _Tenebrous Remnant: Faunus_."

  
Yang nodded. She could feel the blood rushing to her head, so she should probably get down if she actually wanted to look at Blake while she listened. "Okay..."

  
"It's for all their lines. WereGrimm, Witch, Foocubus, Liche. And it's complete garbage!" She shouted the last at the offending text.

  
Swinging down from the top bunk, Yang sat on the floor next to Blake's book piles. Out of the line of fire between Blake and _TR: Faunus_. "Want to rant about it?"

  
"I may not be able to talk tomorrow, but it'll be worth it. " Blake took a deep breath. "Where do I even start?"

  
"How about the intro fiction? WereGrimm books are kinda notorious for them."

  
Blake shook her head. "Oh, was that what the first twenty pages was supposed to be? It was red type on a black background. In some overwrought font. I couldn't read it, so I skipped it, hoping it wasn't important."

  
"Rough start."

  
"The first bit I could actually _read_ was a note from the designers, saying how they'd gotten complaints that Faunus weren't in the corebook of each line. Like, at all. They're supposed to be set in Remnant, Yang. A 'darker, more mature' Remnant, but Remnant. And they just... left out the Faunus."

  
"Um."

  
"Which was what I thought. But the rest of the note was the developers apologizing for that, and saying that this was the book that would show how important Faunus are to Remnant at large, and tie them in with all the different gamelines. And that they'd done a lot of research before publishing, because they wanted to get it right."

  
Yang nodded. "I mean, that sounds promising? Doesn't really excuse what they'd already done, but maybe it'll be okay?"

  
"And moon and stars, were both of us wrong about that." Blake swung her feet off her bed, so she was facing Yang. "So, it started with a couple of pages of common Faunus signifiers. Ears, horns, tails, all the basics. I couldn't quite parse their rules, but it gave all Faunus a 'Night Vision' perk, and a 'Discrimination' drawback. With a list of a bunch more perks and drawbacks you could buy with build points. They didn't exactly lay the character creation process out, but it seems pretty obvious. It's just that some of the perks and drawbacks were... real bad."

  
"How bad?"

  
Blake started doling out air quotes. "'Seductive Pheromones', 'Grimm Heritage', 'Faunus Passion Rites', 'Legacy of Indolence', 'Bonehead slash Birdbrain'... there were more. Every single stupid stereotype about Faunus, stuffed into the rules."

  
"Umm, 'Faunus Passion Rites?'"

  
"It's the stupid 'all Faunus are freaky sex addicts' thing. Have crazy sex with anyone at any time, for any reason, all because we're just animals. But because this is a 'darker, more mature Remnant', it's not _just_ because we're horny all the time, it's because it literally gives mechanical bonuses."

  
Yang sat back on her hands, blinking. "So like Orlando FitzHalberd-"

  
"Except not as a joke. There are literally court cases where-" Blake stopped, clenched her fists. Yang was pretty sure she heard her actually growling.

  
"So was that what made you chuck it?"

  
"No, but that _is_ where I started hate-reading it."

  
Yang started to ask something, stopped herself. Thought for moment, figured Blake would probably indulge her curiosity. "What about 'Grimm Heritage'?"

  
"Supposedly, someone in the distant past had sex with a Grimm, and that's where Faunus came from. As opposed to WereGrimm, who are just human/Grimm hybrids because of some curse. But the Faunus are _alllll_ about the sex. It really just gives you bonuses to scare people, because you're descended from Grimm. And they needed to get the 'big scary Faunus' stereotype in there."

  
Yang blew out a breath. "I take it the book didn't get better."

  
"It did not. It reprinted an Atlas Military Bulletin about spotting concealed Faunus. Just reprinted. That bulletin outed whole families, and they just included it as a bit of flavor text. It includes my bow trick, that some Faunus are chameleons, like one of my friends, how to spot a hidden tail, if someone's been cutting their horns..."

  
Looking between the book and Blake, who had pulled her legs up to her chest, Yang said, "You know, we don't actually have to return it to the library."

  
"It's not like anyone who wants to can't find that bulletin. They distribute it regularly at Atlas institutions, with periodic revisions."

  
Yang crawled up onto the bed, next to her friend. Sat next to her, just barely touching. "You don't have to keep going if you don't want to."

  
Blake unfolded her legs, grabbed onto Yang's hand with a tight grip. "I want to just get everything out. Then return it. Or throw it in the trash, whatever."

  
"If you're sure."

  
"Yeah. Besides, the next part is the _best_."

  
Yang held on.

  
"So, they have a neat little sidebar before they start discussing organizations, saying how these are based on real groups, mostly."

  
"Don't tell me. They start off with a freaky sex cult."

  
"Nailed it." Blake tried to give Yang a smile. "A cult of prostitutes slash blackmailers slash assassins, who seduce prominent members of society, bear them Faunus children, and then use that as blackmail material to make them do what they want. Or just kill them. Which is _the_ foundational organization behind the Great Faunus Conspiracy."

  
"Which, let me guess, is all about how the Faunus secretly rule the world, and just adopt a suffering, put-upon mask to generate sympathy?"

  
"Yet another of the greatest hits on the 'Humans are the real victims' list." Blake snorted. "There was a- well, not a bright spot, but something actually entertaining in there."

  
"Oh?"

  
"Yeah. One of the victims of the scheme was a prominent Dust magnate. He had three children, but his second daughter wasn't actually from his wife."

  
Yang stared at her. "You mean..."

  
"Yup. In Tenebrous Remnant, Weiss is a Faunus. They didn't say what kind, though. It was written a couple of years ago, so I think it was just supposed to be a plot hook that could be developed by the Fortress Master. Storyteller. Whatever they call them in this."

  
"Wow." Yang tried to think how they could possibly explain this to Weiss. Because Blake was right. _That_ would be entertaining.

  
Blake continued. "Anyway, they continue on with a couple more organizations to match up with each game line. A bunch of Faunus with Grimm Heritage trying to awaken themselves into WereGrimm. A splinter group of the sex cult that's become aware of Foocubi, and are running actual studies on them (and having more freaky sex). A different splinter group that uses tantric sex and is made up of Witches, though they don't realize they're Witches, and they're still comically evil, so human Witches are trying to decide whether to bring them into the fold. And a loose organization of Faunus that have died and come back as Liches, whose central concern seems to be 'how do we keep having sex when we're dead?'"

  
"Good grief. I think the authors had some issues."

  
"Apart from their desperate lust for Faunus? And really weird ideas about what constitutes an erogenous zone? Some of the fiction that I _could_ read was just smut."

  
Yang shrugged, "I mean-"

  
"Very obviously written, edited, and typeset one-handed."

  
"Ew." Not that Yang couldn't appreciate well-crafted smut. This didn't sound like that.

  
"Oh, oh, but there's more!" Blake threw some baleful glances at the book. "They saved the_ absolute best_ organization for last!"

  
"They didn't..."

  
"They did. I mean, it's the Red Talon, not the White Fang. But they _absolutely did_."

  
Yang blew out a breath. "I take it it's not even close?"

  
"I mean, they did actually do research that wasn't just looking up dirty pictures of Faunus. It's surprisingly close."

  
"Huh."

  
Blake squeezed Yang's hand. "Which is bad for other reasons. But they have very unflattering characters sketches of the leaders of the early and modern 'Red Talon.' The first one is a giant coward of a bully, and the current one is a blood-drenched sociopath. But they chose to zoom in on the cell operating in the Kingdom of Vale."

  
"Which-"

  
"Which was mine. The current leader of the Red Talon is portrayed as a noble, heroic freedom fighter, trying to do the best for his people."

  
Yang kept quiet.

  
"As opposed to the reality, where 'blood-drenched sociopath' is actually pretty apt." Blake took a deep breath. "Want to know who the bad seed in the Vale cell of the Red Talon is?"

  
Of all the guesses Yang didn't want to make, this was the one. But she had to play her part. "Is it a powerfully evil, sex-crazed teenage girl?"

  
"With long black hair, cat ears, and a customized ballistic chain scythe. I mean, I'd be flattered by how much of a combat monster they made me into, IF IT WASN'T FOR THE REST OF THE BOOK. LIKE MY PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION. **WHICH READS LIKE THEY WANT TO LICK ME!**"

  
"Yeah, we're burning it."

  
Blake took a few panting breaths. "And that's when I threw it."

  
"Can't blame you." Yang thought for a minute. "I've got a steel bucket in the garage with Bumblebee. Want to find some matches? I'll get the book."

  
While Blake hunted through their closet, Yang picked up the book by one corner. Was tempted to flip to the entry on the Red Talon, and read a few entries. Drenched that desire in kerosene and threw sparklers at it until it went up in a fireball.

  
"Found them."

  
"Great. We've got a few accelerants in the garage. You can take your pick." And the library would have to lump it.

**Author's Note:**

> To be completely fair to Pale Beowolf and White Wolf, Tenebrous Remnant: Faunus is the equivalent to World of Darkness: (Anti-Roma slur)
> 
> ... Which is to say, they still published it, even if they're full of regrets about it nowish. The dangers of using the real world as the basis for your game setting.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Neon Katt vs. Tenebrous Remnant: Faunus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21911890) by [Nerdorama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerdorama/pseuds/Nerdorama)


End file.
